Back In the Saddle...

Last week I shared with you my shame and dismay at the uncharacteristic reading drought I was suffering through.

By airing my problem publicly, I was motivated to work harder on the fix (a good example of why we encourage our writers to publicize their goals as motivation to win!). And, my friends, it appears that I am back in the saddle again.

I hit that often-critical 88-page mark, and the book I’ve been chipping away at got good. Really good. And now I’m carrying it with me wherever I go—from upstairs to down, and vice-versa. I was even at risk of being late to work this morning because I couldn’t be bothered to stop reading and get in the danged shower. And I had an epiphany.

In addition to the euphoria I feel at being “into a book” in the old ways of yore, I realized that my reading drought could also be attributed (at least partially) to that 100-page curse.

Do you know about this? Where it takes a good 80-100 pages to get to the meat of a book’s story and characters? What is that?!?! And thank goodness I stuck with it, because the payoff has been spectacular.

I’m not going to delve into a deep pit of ponderance over why authors and their readers must sometimes battle it out over the first fourth of a novel. Instead, I’d love to know what book you’ve read that was well worth the hard work in the beginning. (We can all wear our “I survived the first 100” T-shirts together.)

— Lindsey

Photo by Flickr user eric.surfdude.